


Christmas Shopping - Reprise

by SmokySky



Series: Tommy Shelby's 12 Days Of Christmas [8]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Advent Calendar, Advent Calendar Drabble, Baking, Christmas Presents, F/M, Gen, Making Presents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21958849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmokySky/pseuds/SmokySky
Summary: Another 12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar fic based on the same prompt: Christmas Shopping.Tommy worries that his gift doesn't show Mabel how much he cares about her...so he comes up with something different.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s) (mentioned)
Series: Tommy Shelby's 12 Days Of Christmas [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559590
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	Christmas Shopping - Reprise

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it, or a great day generally if you don't. Please enjoy a second Christmas Shopping oneshot.
> 
> After hearing about Mabel buying him the perfect gift from Ada, Tommy panics about making sure he gets Mabel something she'll love (even though he doesn't actually buy anything).

Tommy would admit to being somewhat...worried.

Or, rather, he was in a complete state.

Ada had come home from Christmas shopping with Mabel last night, looking all smug on Mabel’s behalf. Apparently Mabel had gotten Tommy a present he would love -  _ which was obvious; Tommy would love anything Mabel got him, because she was the one who got it for him _ \- and all he had gotten her was a pair of gloves. They were nice gloves, of course, but they were still just gloves. She wouldn’t  _ love  _ them, not like Ada said he was going to love his present.

Now he had a week to find Mabel she would love, or this Christmas was going to be ruined, because now Tommy wasn’t going to settle for giving Mabel anything less than perfect.

The only problem was...he had no idea what to get her.

Mabel didn’t wear jewellery, not habitually anyway. She didn’t really eat sweets or cakes. He had no idea what books she was reading these days, she got through them so fast. And even though Tommy actually had money this year, thanks to the new family business, he couldn’t just buy Mabel something expensive and be done with it - she had her own money, between her legal job and her father’s money, so it wasn’t like he could outspend her...even if he could, she wouldn’t be impressed by it. She just wasn’t that kind of girl. 

Put all that together, and Tommy was lost. Lost, and panicking -  _ because what the hell was he going to do _ \- and at his absolute lowest.

Asking his brothers for help.

“You could always man up and tell her how you feel.” Arthur grunted, half-ignoring Tommy’s panicking in order to smoke a cigarette.

“Yeah.” John agreed: “Get her a bottle of wine - you know, because she’s classy - get some candles lit, and get her in bed.”

Finn looked up (and, oh God, when had Tommy decided Finn was going to be part of this?) from his homework, and pulled a confused face: “Why would Tommy get Mabel in bed? It’s very small for two people.”

That should have been the end of that - but of course John didn’t know when to stop talking: “It don’t matter in this case, Finn, ‘cos Tommy and Mabel wouldn’t need that much space.”

“Why not?”

“John’s just being an idiot, Finn. Ignore him.” Tommy interrupted before John could say something that would get them all a clip round the ear from Polly: “Just like we always do.”

Tommy had every intention of taking his own advice, and ignoring whatever ideas John came up with, but even a broken clock was right twice a day: and every now and then, John sometimes managed to come up with a good idea.

And, thanks to Tommy’s lucky stars, it seemed today was one of those times.

“You can ignore me, but I have actually got an idea. Why don’t you make her some gingerbread? With sugar? She always says the stuff she buys in shops ain’t sweet enough for her.”

It actually was a good idea.

As fucking awful as it would be if it went wrong  _ (and there was a very high chance that it could go wrong) _ , if it went well...then it would be the perfect Christmas gift. And perfect was exactly what Tommy was aiming for. Of course, he wasn’t going to admit to John that his idea was any good, because Lord knew he didn’t need any encouragement, but he was going to use John’s idea. Just in secret.

So when he was certain everyone else was asleep, Tommy crept out of bed and snuck downstairs into the kitchen. He shut the door behind him, and opened the back door: determined to keep the smell of baking out of the rest of the house, just in case this all went to shit.

He warmed the treacle and milk on the stove, stirring until they were no longer separate colours in the pan, and tipped in the flour and butter, adding a few teaspoons of brown sugar to satisfy Mabel’s sweet tooth. He combined the mixture, stirring and stirring until his arm ached - but the dough was ready to be rolled out on the kitchen counter. It almost went wrong when Tommy forgot to sprinkle some flour across where he was working before he rolled the gingerbread, but thankfully he managed to not leave the dough sticking to the counter, but he managed not to make too much of a mess. Eventually he even managed to cut out a dozen identical  _ (almost) _ star-shaped gingerbread cookies.

It had taken him over two hours, but he’d done it.

And he managed to get them in and out of the oven without burning them.

But then came the difficult part.

_ Decorating _ .

The thing with decorating biscuits, especially the way Tommy had decided to do it, was that it required delicacy. And though Tommy was fairly good at dealing with delicate situations, he wasn’t sure how good he was at  _ actual  _ delicacy. And if he fucked up his perfect gingerbread biscuits because he was too cack-handed at decorating, Tommy might just scream.

He didn’t even dare to think about it.

The first eleven weren’t too bad: Tommy decorated them as snowflakes, to match the ribbon he’d found in Polly’s sewing box to put around the tin he was going to put the biscuits in. They turned out pretty good, even if he did say so himself. It was the twelfth one that Tommy had to get absolutely perfect.

_ For Mabel, the sweetest girl _

__

It took all his best efforts to stop his hands from shaking when he used the end of a spoon to carefully write the message in icing, but he managed it, and he knew she would love it. Maybe, by some Christmas miracle, she would love it so much she would understand what he was trying to say to her...that he loved her.

Maybe, if he was lucky.

... _ A boy could dream, couldn’t he? _


End file.
